Your First, My Second
by patchworkdove
Summary: The Witch-king of Angmar's loyalty to Sauron surpasses that of a faithful servant; he is utterly devoted to his Master and will stop at nothing to retrieve his Ring of Power. Begins within the Two Towers timeline. Ring is returned to Sauron AU.
1. Dead Marshes

With the encroaching of each new hour, his Master grows stronger. He knows that the One Ring must be drawing closer to the fires of Orodruin and the towering spire of Barad-dûr, clutched in the paws of snivelling half-man vermin. The Halflings are so near now that they must lurk beneath the very eaves of Mordor. Such an unfathomable insult that they should slip under the noses of wing-mounted Nazgûl, yet Morgomir may have already allowed this impudence.

There is something in the Dead Marshes. The lesser Nazgûl thought he smelled some malodorous presence above the fetid smell of the corpse-ridden bog, but failed to investigate it thoroughly. Foolish Morgomir serves his own fears above all else; the memory of She-Elf magic and thundering river water still cows him and tempers his wrath.

Not so is the case for the Witch-king of Angmar. He has dealt with magic far deeper and more terrible than anything that could be contained within the shallow, cobbled bed of the River Bruinen or charmed by the dying race of Elves. He had immersed himself in black magic of blood and bones and bathed in the burning fire of the Lidless Eye. He hated water, as all Nazgûl do, but he would endure it and emerge enraged rather than riddled with maggot-holes of fear. The Witch-king did not persist in Middle-Earth to serve his own weaknesses; he served the one and only Master he had ever deemed fit to lead him. He devoted himself completely to the greatest power he had ever known, his Dark Lord, and he would risk no harm to Sauron come no high river nor deep marsh. His Master's Ring was near, and if the treacherous 'Baggins' lurked in the vast tracts of the Dead Marshes, the Witch-king would leave no withered shrub or weed-choked reedbed untouched by his search for the bearer of the One Ring and the shard-filled wound of his Morgul blade.

He wheeled his winged steed around for another high, slow pass above the marshes, the armoured fell-beast containing its guttural sounds and holding its patience. It knew better than to reveal their presence from the cover of the misty clouds. The Witch-king peered down from the saddle, raking his unblinking eyes across the sparse and open terrain below, his vision assisted by magic and hawkishly sharp. There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to run; if something had truly stumbled into this wasting mire, it was only a matter of time before he found it. The Nazgûl's wraithen body knew noting of the fleeting impatience of life anymore; his mortal existence had long since faded into obscurity, giving him a snake's patience and the endurance of stone.

After hours of uneventful gliding amongst the damp, cold clouds laced with frustrating hints of a scent on the air and passing, fleeting whispers of some hidden magic, he caught sight of his quarry. A pale and twisted form crawled through the reeds below and he recognised the perverse creature instantly. Gollum, the hideous wretch who'd taken his Master's Ring and violated its power and purity in dank caves for hunting slimy fish and goblins. Considering him a worm-eating-worm and feeling no pity, the Witch-king detested Gollum greatly on all levels. With his eyes trained on the skulking toad he saw two other shapes moving through the weeds, their bodies obscured by some charm that caused his sight to slide away so that he couldn't look upon them directly.

He drew his ragged-tipped Morgul blade and spurred the fell-beast into a deep stoop, intending to carve the missing shards of his sword from the carcasses of the runts below. His mount saw their targets and bellowed in anticipation of food, the Witch-king joining the chorus with his own blood-curdling shriek.

The pathetic creatures panicked, bolting blindly with no cover to run to. The meatiest one squirmed under the densely knotted thorns of a scrub patch and the fell-beast needed little encouragement to descend on those briars with talons outstretched. The Gollum-worm fled across the reed tussocks, leaving a familiarly dark-haired half-man stumbling in the mud. Blue eyes wrought with terror, the same the Witch-king remembered from Weathertop, and he knew with a chilling rise of corrupted joy in his empty chest that this was his unfinished victim. Vaulting from the saddle and cleaving a path through the undergrowth, he struck a path straight for the 'Baggins', intending to deliver the death-blow he'd been denied that night in the ruins.

The dark-haired vermin was scrabbling backwards through the rank moss, transfixed by the Witch-king's dreadful aura, when a glint of gold shone from the sag of its collar. The One Ring hung heavily on a chain about the runt's neck.

"Give me the Ring, wretch, and I may see to it that your death is mercifully swift." He hissed thickly, outstretching one ironclad claw.

The Ring's will was great, but the Halfling resisted. One grimy hand stifled the Ring while the other drew a short Elfish sword with an unsteady grip.

"Fool. No man can slay me."

"Good job we're Hobbits then!" The fat one had escaped the fell-beast's jaws and the harsh bite of a blade wielded not by the hand of man tore into the back of the Witch-king's knee.

He screamed in pain, the flickering candles of the dead which littered the pools nearby roared into towering pillars of fire tainted Morgul-green. Rounding on his surprise assailant as his knee buckled under him, he swung his flame-edged sword and rent the Halfling in two. As he did so, the other leapt upon his unguarded back to the cry of "Sam, no!" and sunk the Elf-blade deep into his shoulder.

The Witch-king hissed and swung wildly with claw and sword as he felt the Elfish magic seep and sear into his very core, desperate to kill or at least throw the Halfling off. He felt the weight fall from the blade, but it remained stuck fast in his back. Steadying himself in spite of the agony that threatened to undo his shadowy body, he faced what remained of his opponents.

The Halflings were both dead and bloody ruins, but Gollum the worm was crouched over the body of 'Baggins' with the Ring in-hand. The ignoble scavenger grinned knowingly and bound away at speed. With little option left, the Witch-king lifted his blade with his better arm and hurled it at the scrounging thief before he could slip out of reach. It flew true, cutting a singing path through the heavy air before thudding into the frail, bony body and felling Gollum with a splash.

The Witch-king watched and waited for a moment, alert for the actions of any other unseen enemies, but he heard only the rustling of his steed's wings and the deathly silence resettling on the bog. The fight was over, now he could claim his prize; if he could find it.

He steeled himself against the pain but the wound in his knee left him lame and the blade jutting from his left shoulder was beyond his reach to remove. It rendered his left arm all but useless. Wading through pools on his course to Gollum's corpse had the ghostly dead sensing the graveness of his wounds and they clawed at his robes to test what fight he had left. There was enough; he batted at their bony hands and shrieked at their insolence.

The Morgul blade was easily torn free of the twisted corpse and sheathed, but the dead, gnarled fingers did not hold his Master's Ring. He cast around for it, despairing that he should come so close only to fail yet again and cursing the very existence of the Halfling runt race, when it presented itself to him. The Ring had been flung free by the impact of his sword but of all the many secret, hidden places it could have fallen to and become lost in, it had chanced to catch itself on the needle-narrow spike of a reed stem. It seated itself on a makeshift pedestal of spear-leaves above the foul mud, wanting to be found.

The Witch-king sagged indelicately to his knees from a combination of reverence and agony, taking the Ring in his unsteady but gentle grip. He cradled it in his gauntleted palm and drew it close to him, staggered by the weight of its presence, like a mighty drake coiled within his hand. He had never before held his Master's Ring and although he had served no other purpose for the past three thousand years than to find this King of All Treasures, this moment seemed tinged with the surreal. It was dreamlike, or the Elf-blade in his back was fraying his grip on the physical world.

It was so small, having been fitted to the stubby paws of meek Halflings, but it soon swelled in his grip to a size that would accommodate his own finger in a clear and wanton invitation. He swept his thumb tenderly over its bright edges and listened to the shrill song of metal upon metal. He was tempted; it was such a perilously beautiful thing, smooth and sleek in unfettered and pure lustrous gold, but he remembered the way it looked on his Master's great claws. Yellow metal on black, emblazoned in red fire with a powerful script that only his Master's touch or a lick of flame could rouse. He curled his fist tightly around his Master's Ring and called for his steed to bear him into Mordor.

He was tempted by its raw influence, but the Witch-king of Angmar served his Master's pleasure, and nothing would please Sauron the Great more than to be reunited with his Ring of Power.


	2. Black Chantry

The fading Witch-king clutched his fist to his chest, the grasp that should have been an inescapable wrought-iron vice was failing as though infected with rust's crumbling decay. He had so little strength left in his wounded leg and crippled arm that the fell-beast was flying more under its own volition than his direction, lazily drifting up over the Mountains of Shadow that served to fortify Mordor's western front. Treacherous crosswinds tore between the jagged peaks and threatened to rip the Black Rider from his saddle even though he was hunched low to his mount's broad back. He held on for his Master's grim death.

They emerged from the ranks of towering peaks to soar out over the Morgai Ridges and the Plateau of Gorgoroth, as vast and dark as the night sky. The flickering constellations below were not borne of stars but the brands and torches of Lord Sauron's innumerable army. The sight of his Master's minions lent the closest thing to comfort that the Witch-king could feel; assuaging his concerns for the fate of the Ring. Should he succumb to his wounds and fall from his mount over these plains thronging with warriors under the mark of the Red Eye, he knew that the Ring would find its way safely to his Lord's hand.

The thought gave him resbite, but the Witch-king had searched long and hard for his trophy. If the Elf-blade seeping poison into his chest was truly to be his mortal wound, he was determined that he would not hiss his last icy breath until he'd handed the Ring to Lord Sauron himself. He wanted his Master to know the true extent of his loyal devotion and he wanted to see that glorious form reinstated to the physical realm, even if it was his last sight before slipping into the void. The Witch-king would not be denied. No mere Orcish braggard would lay claim to this prize. He brought himself new strength with the force of his tenacity.

His fell-beast skirted the burning spray of Orodruin and the grey ash whirled about them like a heated snowstorm. Ahead lay Barad-dûr and the great roving Eye spun its searing scrutiny to track the approaching beast and Rider. The Witch-king could hear the thick, rolling voice of his Master calling him like a siren.

The fell-beast bore him to a balcony high on the black tower and he slid from the saddle without dignity to crumple on the floor. Orc guards stationed nearby stood in dumbfounded uncertainty, mindless war-fodder that only just knew enough to fear the wrath of the Nazgûl. They wisely made no effort to touch him as he climbed to his feet. He stumbled into the brutally ornate and gothic hallways of the upper tower, all vaulted ceilings and sharpened arches of sublime symmetry that no mortal could hope to craft. It made the achievements of men look hopelessly crude and unrefined by comparison.

"Ahough. What wound brings our dog-of-war limping to Lord Sauron's feet?" The Mouth of Sauron twitched with black froth and a brazen grin. "This inner sanctum is not for your brutal kind to sully with your bloodied and squalid paws, go back to your kennel of Minas-Morgul to lick your wounds _dwimmerlaik_, and improve your game of 'fetch'."

"Such officious words from one so young and yet so long in the tooth." The Witch-king wheezed, insulted that this mere mortal man would dare block his path. The lithe-tongued puppet would have long since found himself voiceless and throatless had the Nazgûl not acknowledged his usefulness in communicating with the weak and fearful races of Middle-Earth.

The Mouth sneered. "Or perhaps you've returned to beg for the touch of your Master then? I have heard the wanting in your voice when you speak with Him and I have watched you linger unbidden about the tower. Ahough. You do not come limping to His feet, do you, but come like a dog lusting after its Master's leg!"

"I come with actions that speak greater than your meagre words!" The Witch-king snarled with a choked shriek of rage, exposing the glow of the One Ring from within the cage of his gauntlet.

The sight of the Ring struck the smug and sneering grimace from the Mouth's face with such satisfying speed and completeness that the Witch-king doubted his sword could have improved the event. The simpering man shrank back and wordlessly opened the obsidian vault.

Lord Sauron the Great was seated high upon His opulent throne, surrounded by all manner of luxuriously intricate crafts of His own design. Such wondrous things looked borne of nature and perfection rather than the inception and production of any being. The Witch-king truly considered himself in the presence of a Godlike spirit. All around there were shapes that appeared to his humble eyes like the mouths of precious shells; a choir of obscenely polished visceral-pink and blood-red smoothness fringed and adorned with elegantly curved horns and branches of jet black. Metal, stone, wood, cloth, ivory and hide, every material imaginable had been bent to Lord Sauron's will and everything repeated in recurring patterns or reflections of itself so that it was like a mirrored hall, only with no need for trickery or illusion. His Master had been reduced to a ghostly, transient shade but He retained His indomitable presence and stature.

The Witch-king approached holding his wounds in-check as best he could to shroud the shame of his enfeebled state. Dropping to one knee with discipline but without fanfare proved a task too great; the bending of his mauled knee pulled at the separating flesh to force a stray whimper from him.

"Sire, I have reclaimed the One Ring for your hand from the creatures Gollum and Baggins. They now lay slain in the Dead Marshes." He revealed his prize.

Lord Sauron leisurely rose from his throne and silently descended the black marble steps. His movements had the languid grace of some great predator and He came to loom above the bowed and crippled wraith with height that no Elf or Man could hope to match.

Emboldened by the extent of his wounds and the fraying of his consciousness, the Witch-king offered up the gauntlet of his ruined arm at much effort, beseeching for the hand of his Master. He was duly rewarded, his plea granted by the ephemeral touch of a great and shadowy claw. The long fingers of the Dark Lord that alighted on the Witch-king's were one too few in number; the legacy of Isildur's blow causing its absence. Nought but a stump of the Ring-finger remained, but the Witch-king offered up the golden band to its rightful place.

In an instant the Ring swelled to its proper size and shone with burning script while a magnificent new talon sprouted into being. Shadow peeled away like old, shed skin as firm flesh blacker than the void sloughed off the trappings of its shade-prison. Sauron the Great was reborn with a hide of glittering scales knitted tighter and finer than any suit of mythril-mail, covering a monstrous body of elegant muscle. Flame twined about His thighs and curled across His chest, wreathing Him in the same rich, hot fire that smouldered in His eyes. More powerful than a Balrog, more fair than an Elf, He was as terrible as He was glorious.

The Lord of the Rings erupted in a triumphant roar of force and fire to rival Orodruin's fury. The human Mouth recoiled in horror, unfamiliar with the true face of their Master. Soon enough the storm of elation passed to be replaced with the steady thrumming of Sauron's mere being, His mane falling past His shoulders like ribbons of heavy smoke. "Bring me my armour." He spoke, words flowing deep and thick like molten lava from the maw of a volcano, filling the hall with the utterance of Black Speech.

The Mouth fled. The Witch-king absently hoped that the coward would be foolish enough not to return with their Master's mantlements and that his disobedience would be met with death. The thought appeased the fading Nazgûl, though he knew he would not persist long enough to see it. He was let alone in the majestic presence of his Master and for this he was glad; at least his death would not be a spectacle for the eyes of Men or Orcs.

"Your wounds are dire my servant, yet you have accomplished the task I set for you. Tell me, what drives this devout fealty?" The hot, sharp breath of Sauron poured about the Witch-king, informing him that he was under very close scrutiny.

"I ask for nothing, my Liege." There was little of the Witch-king left now, his black robes hung from his thinning frame to pool upon the floor.

Sauron the Great rumbled in amusement, purring like a mountain. Being reunited with His Ring of Power and this pleasing display of staunch and limitless obedience had evidently brought him good humour. "You never have, but I know your kind. All from the race of Men hold dreams. You live to strive." The penetrating fire of His eyes could have flayed skin from bone and He smiled knowingly with a sharp-fanged mouth.

The Witch-king was defeated beyond pretence. "Great Lord, you are my first and foremost. I live only to please you."

"I am your First, my Second? That much is plain." A monstrous hand wrenched the Elf-blade clear with heedless ease. "Your actions do please me, greatly, but what desire forged such steadfast resolve?"

It was getting harder to form words now. "I have yearned for your touch. Always."

Some articulated sound issued from his Master's lips, words of a language unknown to the Witch-king. Their significance was lost on his ears and the hand of his Master came without warning. He was thrust sprawling to the floor and tumbled onto his back like a dry, dead leaf struck by the blow of winter's sharpness. Black claws flipped armour aside and peeled away the layers of his robes, leaving his last fey remains naked on the cold marble. Fear of retribution for his audacious confession seemed appropriate, but that concern felt too distant.

His bleeding edges were swept and scraped together to give barely more than a handful of shadow. Cupped in his Master's palm, he could feel himself seeping through between great fingers and sliding limply over the edge like water when one savage talon stabbed into him, piercing him like a solid lump of flesh. It pushed deep within him, clawing and tearing at his weakened core; a relentless violation that cut him undone. Finally, some inner part of his tattered being was seized by that terrible hook and ripped from him. It rent his insides-out so completely that it did not cut him apart in ways that could be stitched back together but unravelled him like cloth beyond all hope of repair. It was at this point that his mind dissolved into uncomprehending nothingness.


	3. The Newborn

The corrupting stain of the Elfish magic was speared upon Sauron's burning claw, where it boiled away into impotent vapours. It left the Maiar clutching only the last wisps of his faithful Black Captain. The Witch-king of Angmar had been reduced to virtually nothing, held back from the void only by Sauron's strong hold on him.

He climbed back up to the seat of his throne ponderously, his thoughts centred on the limp little thing in his possession. There had been many servants under is command through the ages, an infinite spectrum of delegates that had come and gone. A multitude of motives he had exploited to his own ends; some noble but the majority less-so. It wasn't even unusual to discover that he was the object of another's desire; males and females alike from mere mortals to mighty Ainu ranked among those who'd succumbed to his charm. Some he had seduced to fill a purpose while others had merely fallen around him, brought low solely from the long-lost fairness of the beautiful form he could no-longer assume.

Sauron tenderly turned the sliver of a wraith over with an appraising eye. He had been aware of his Lieutenant's infatuation for many years but had believed it to be a wanting born of fear-thrills or power-lust. Now he was less certain; Men flirted with dark and dangerous things only to prove their worth to themselves, as though coming back from the brink of fear's pit indicated an immunity to its all-consuming depths. This wraith was no slave to terror and sought approval from none but his Lord. The force of the Ring's Power was all but insurmountably irresistible to men, who lusted after what it could give above all else, and yet the Witch-king had made no effort to take it for his own. It was enigmatic; for three thousand years Sauron knew he had not been the omnipotent figurehead of darkness he had once been and he would have found it unsurprising if his Black Captain's yearnings had faded. However, the converse had been the case; the Witch-king rose to the fore in the years since their defeat at the hands of Isildur, accomplishing much in a campaign of conquest dominating Angmar.

There was nothing fundamentally remarkable about him, no single facet of the man had been monumentally uncommon and yet Sauron found himself unaccountably captivated by what he had become. The Witch-king had been born a man, a Númenórean Prince birthed under the dark daylight hours of a celestial eclipse perhaps, but a man nonetheless. A single grain of sand amongst an endless desert of others. He craved power as all men do and he had eagerly swallowed the lure of wealth and immortality offered to him, though true as it was that he'd been the last of the Nine to fade to shadow. When the metamorphosis finally took hold and bent him into a bodiless Nazgûl, he had decided to submit to the darkness as opposed to helplessly falling into it, renouncing his name and nation to follow Sauron's commands. Strangely, he had also retained his height and his mind better than the rest of the Nine to become the greatest and most potent of them all.

The Witch-king had been manipulated and sculpted by his hand to become something far greater than the meagre trappings of his birthright, and yet his long-forgotten title was proving to be increasingly apt. The Black Captain had been adorned with a customary epithet by his Númenórean peoples; they had called him Er-Mûrazôr. The Black Prince. He had fallen under Sauron's pull but had been captured rather than swallowed whole, trapped in a tight orbit like some red moon around Sauron's dark world. Distant enough to wreak a wrathful path of conquest all of his own, but dependably there at an arm's reach. He was an ever-willing constant of capability, utterly content to sit in Sauron's long shadow. The indestructible force of his individuality remained, but it had proven to be a boon, tethering him by the sheer force of some trait of humanity that had survived his fading to shadow.

It was curious. In the rising tide of darkness, the Witch-king was truly second only to Sauron. True as it was that his Black Captain now lay like an unravelling spool of silk thread in his palm, brought low by the untrained arms of knife-wielding half-men, but Sauron couldn't detest him for such a display of weakness. One of his hands strayed absently to his throat, questing fingers tentatively testing whether that scar had carried over again to blemish this new body. Alas, even this new monstrous visage of absolute might was humbled by the brand of his past failings; a pale scar collared his neck to hound him for his incompetence. He had suffered many defeats, but none so shameful as being brought down by a miserable dog. At least the mortal-born Witch-king had accomplished his task before he allowed his wounds to take him.

Sauron could see that he had garnered for himself a Second of unparalleled qualities, and he decided that he would keep him. With the same inhuman precision that he had used to create his greatest works, Sauron clutched together all that remained of his greatest servant and lifted the fey handful of darkness up to his scaled lips. Drawing deep from the very pit of his new chest, Sauron took a great breath that shimmered with the strength of his fire and magic, channelling it through the cage of his clasped claws. The blast of burning air ignited the tattered soul within, blowing greater substance into it and it billowed in size. In moments it was more than could be contained within his hold and soon it had enough weight to drape over the edges of his hand. With a little time it had enough body to hang like a pendulous carcass from his claws and as the surface of the dark flesh began to tighten under his baking breath, the developing form ceased to bleed shadow.

Enough of the Witch-king's savage and fighting essence had still persisted in that fistful of shade that the newly conjured body laid out across Sauron's thighs had a familiar height and breadth to its frame. His scale-armoured face cracked a demonic smile of fangs, entertained by the brutal tenacity with which his Black Captain defied death and defended his existence. This form that his Second had clawed back from the fringe of the abyss would serve as Sauron's blank canvas, but he felt inspired by the inherent properties of this raw material. He set about creating something of his own and began carving the mark of his craftsmanship into the Witch-king's virgin hide.


End file.
